Cold Hands
by Don'tCry
Summary: Snape's life was just perfect. He had to spend his free time teaching insolent brats and being tortured by the most evil man on the planet. He does need an investigation against Malfoy of all people to throw the blame off a depressed brat. 5th year Dark


His summer had been wonderful, thank you for asking Professor Dumbledore, it had been just spectacular. He'd spent the days in the hovel some people would call a house waiting for his arm to burn. Or a patronus to arrive. Whichever one fate felt like dishing to him that day. Any sports activities? Not unless you call being tortured by the Cruciatus Curse a sport. More like a hobby. That is what Severus Snape WANTED to answer to the gnarled wizard sitting before him, when he enquired after his summer. What he actually said went something along the lines of "Fine, I hope yours was enjoyable." They were sitting in Dumbledore's office at the beginning of term and just to be original they were discussing the Dark Lord.

"Have you brewed the potion necessary to Occlude Nymphadora Tonks' mind, Severus?"

said Dumbledore, his eyes boring into Snape.

"It will only protect her for five hours, but I trust that will be sufficient." Snape replied,

his voice even.

"Will Voldemort find it suspicious that one of his more incompetent Death Eaters has learned how to Occlude in such a short space of time?"

"The potion was created so that the penetrator finds only the information that the drinker allows him to find. As long as she calls the created memory forward that Dark Lord will be fooled."

"Has he become suspicious of you or has he accepted the explanation for your late arrival?"

Snape flinched, although it was almost undetectable. He had suffered long hours under the Cruciatus curse before the Dark Lord had even demanded an explanation.

"He does not question my permanent use of Occlumency, I have explained I need it to conceal my thoughts from you and there can be no moments of weakness in my shield, even in your absence. He found the explanation for my absence when he called...satisfactory."

The old man looked at him, but his gaze was not full of pity. Not many had seen this side of soft, caring, and slightly eccentric Dumbledore. They did not see the war general which used this image to fool others into trusting him and under-estimating him. Long ago, good had learned that it can not defeat evil. With evil there were no moral boundaries, nor was there guilt, at least when the evil was pure. It took time and big moral strain to fight a war without cutting edges and ruthlessly using those with lesser intellect to your advantage. Evil had to be fought by a different evil. Snape sometimes wondered if pure evil was in a way much healthier for everyone involved. With evil you knew who would betray you (everyone), you knew the price for your mistakes

(torture/death), you knew that you were expendable, that there were thousands of others ready to replace you. With 'good' you knew nothing.

Dumbledore stood up, and told him with a sigh that it was time to get to the feast.

"The students should not be kept waiting, their stomachs rumbling in anticipation for a delicious

meal, don't you agree

Severus?"

"Yes."

Sometimes it was so easy to believe he was an eccentric old man with a lemon drop fetish.

"Ah, and Severus, make sure Harry Potter gets off the train all right, we don't want any

ACCIDENTS on the way, do we?"

But only sometimes.

He sat at the feast, his eyes scanning the crowd. His eyes still unconsciously where draw to them. The reincarnation of his pain. Every Year had a group of them. Charming, popular, attractive, malicious, arrogant wizards. It was laughable that after all those years, all those horrible events, horrible truths around him he still was bitter about his

unpopularity in his youth. Sometimes when he sat in his room, alone staring into the flickering flames after he had added another sin to his long list of infractions against humanity and he wondered if he had been like them, falsely noble, naively honorable, maybe he wouldn't be acting as double, triple, quadruple agent for the two people in the

world he most loathed. He sometimes forgot which side he was on. He started out being a double agent for the Dark Lord, his initial mission being to infiltrate Dumbledore's school. He then was found out by Dumbledore after he had so foolishly been caught by a BARMAN. Dumbledore didn't give him the 'second chance' which he was so famous for. No he saw a broken man who was so far down the spiral of depression, bitterness, and hate he would do anything. He saw a tool. The Dark Lord didn't fear Dumbledore because he was more powerful than he was, he feared him because they

were so alike. They saw men as pawns, as tools to be used to achieve their goals. The only thing that differed between them was how they went about accomplishing their goals. When the Dark Lord was 'killed' he was relieved, how could he not be? His double life was over. He fought against his resurrection with vigor and when that failed, his old job became current once more .He returned to the Dark Lord's side late, telling the Dark Lord he acted under Dumbledore's orders so that he could remain a spy for him, while still spying for Dumbledore. No wonder his loyalties were scrambled. He blamed Sirius Black and James Potter, for making his teenage years hell, for causing him to be

bitter, for making him angry, and in turn at himself for letting that anger blind him, guide him falsely into the hands of an intricate web of lies and deceit caused by a single moment. The moment when his arm was permanently scarred, perpetually burning in service of the Dark Lord. In the rare moments where he didn't let his bitterness direct his

actions he saw that he only blamed THEM because he had never had the courage to kill either of his masters, never was brave enough to say 'stop' when he could. But with courage came stupidity, naivety and the point of no return had been crossed the moment the Dark Lord touched his arm with a burning kiss.

"You don't have to kill your dinner, Severus, they kill if for you before they serve it." came the amused voice of

Professor Sprout from his right.

Foolish Woman, always trying to mother him, thinking he needed love and affection. It made him sick when she looked at him in that pitying way of hers, like she was looking at a sick puppy. The only person who had held affection for him was his mother, and she was ashamed of him ,sometimes she could not look at him without crying, wallowing in her self-pity. She had never gotten over the rejection by the father of her baby. She had always blamed him for his absence. His accidental feat of magic, something he had been proud of until the crying and the shouting started, revealed to his father, a pathetic Muggle, the secret his wife had kept from him for nine years. The only time he ever

saw him again was at the reading of his mother's will after her suicide. Tobias Snape had always been a greedy man.

"Would you rather that I let out my frustrations on the students, Pomona?" he sneered, knowing she would be shocked by this callus declaration of his hatred for them. It was obvious to anyone with half a brain that he did not dote on his students or care about their futures in the way that the other teachers did, but he usually did not mention his deep

dislike of them so brashly.

"Severus!" she reprimanded, as if he still was her student and not a thirty-eight year old (Ex) Death Eater.

"Yes, Pomona?" I asked in an exasperated voice, hoping that she would stop intruding on his bitter contemplation of all his misfortunes.

"If you were less abrasive, I'm sure people would like you much better. They don't, you know, like you very much." said Professor sprout, lowering her voice.

No shit, Sherlock. Although he had to admit that it must be very bad, considering that Pomona Sprout always took care to wound nobody's feelings and felt that pretending that everybody was best friends was a much better notion than seeing the picture as it was realistically.

"Has it ever occurred to you that I have no intention of 'making friends' with my students, nor do I feel my relationships with the staff should go beyond professional, since emotional attachments often hinder work, Pomona?

Furthermore, I feel it was a rather crass decision on your part to try and influence me in this particular manner considering that, contrary to what you might believe, being smiled at will not bring the 'abrasive' Potion's master back from the 'Dark Side of the Force' which you no-doubtfully believe is the mysterious realm of being anti-social.

"Now if you'll excuse me, my mash is getting cold."

He had to stop himself for adding '5 points from Hufflepuff for being a nosy know-it-all'. He had already caused immense damage to their relationship, but civility had to be maintained. He needed certain plants for his potions experiments. Professor Sprout stared at him for a fraction of a second, harrumphed, and went back to her dinner.

That is why he enjoyed the first lesson of the year with the First Years sometimes that added element of surprise could reduce them to tears. Unfortunately his colleagues were too used to his biting speeches to be surprised at anything he said. If it had been anyone else that Professor Sprout he would've thought a response like the one he used earlier would be harsh, but something about Professor Sprout reminded him of Molly Weasley, and with that came flashes of how no-doubtfully their Christmases were like, full of warmth and love. He hated all that he didn't have, after all how did others deserve it if he didn't, and he hated all he had, because quite frankly, his life was shit. His only pleasures in life involved biting and degrading comments. The first was chastising students, especially Longbottom and the other was the verbal wrestling matches he engaged in with Professor McGonagall. How she would laugh if she knew he actually enjoyed her one-liners, she was the only one who could rival him in that area. If she wasn't a

Gryffindor, Dumbledore's right and left hands, and a pain in the ass he might even have considered liking her.

The feast was over, and he tried to resist the temptation of scanning the crowd for Potter and his sidekicks. It wasn't good to get agitated before going to sleep, he tended to get nightmares. They mostly involved Potter, a movie he had seen in his childhood named Star Wars, and oddly enough, pink bloomers. He never dreamed about pain or death or guilt. Those things haunted him when he was awake. In some ways that was worse, since he could always interpret away the obvious or blame the food when he dreamed. He wouldn't have this incessant hate for Potter if he didn't represent all that he hated and didn't even have the decency to gloat. He would've felt better if Potter was the same arrogant fool his father was. He looked like a carbon-copy of James Potter, and sometimes he believed it was fate mocking him. His circumstances forced him to protect the son of his most hated rival, and then gave him no viable reason (in the righteous eyes of his colleagues and Dumbledore) to hate him, him and his naive, moronic bravery.

Severus Snape lay his head on his pillow and dreamt of blackness engulfing him, because there was no light, only blindness.

Only seven students had taken his class for Newt level this year. No one else had passed his extremely prestigious criteria. It was an unusually high number compared to previous classes. Maybe they were getting smarter. He shook his head at this thought, the OWL examinations must be getting easier. Only three of the students in his class were in Slytherin. Blaise Zabini, a smart boy with a foxglove for a mother. Beautiful but deadly. Malcolm Baddock, as thick as a troll, his father probably Obliviated and bought off many wizard examiners to get him into Newt Potions. Extremely boisterous Ayden Eadulf, surprising name, considering she's a girl, keeps to herself. He did this every year, predicting who was the one who would drop the class. Somebody did, sooner or later. This year he expected it to be Cho Chang, seeker of the Ravenclaw team. It was a miracle she got such good OWL scores, considering she had spent most of her time sniveling about her dead boyfriend and gallivanting around with Potter. NO, he was not jealous of something as pathetic as that. Just because he never had captured the attention of a pretty girl when he was young and was reduced to dating...He didn't finish the thought; he sunk low, but not that low.

As the last stragglers filed into the class he gave them all a contemptuous look. He knew every single one of them was smug to be in this class in their own way. If their ego got to big their potion making would suffer. Their steps would be carried out less meticulously, their roots cut with less precision. Snape's policy was to crush them before they got too big, just like he did with the first years, and that is exactly what he did.

"I must warn you; this class will not be easy. If you found the OWL course excessively difficult I suggest you get out now, because there is a large difference between the level of skill required for OWL potions and the level of skill required for serious potion making at NEWT level. We are not baking cakes, and if any of you are not able to trust yourselves to make a Scintillating Solution which will not completely fry your neural system when you test it, I suggest you leave NOW." he looked each of his students in the eye, lingering on Chang's for a minute longer than the rest, letting everyone know who it was that would suffer for even the slightest infraction this term. He knew his judgment was harsh, but the world did not tolerate cry-babies, and neither did he. He flicked his wand and instructions for the Draught of Living Death appeared on the board.

"You may begin."

Severus Snape tore the door to his chambers open, seething with rage. Of all the incompetent, asinine things to do, this was the worst. It was only a month into the year, and already a student had been seriously harmed under his care.

Ayden Eadulf had ingested ten times the recommended doses of the Draught of Peace. He contemplated for a moment if she had somehow been forced to do it, if it had been a suicide attempt, or if she was just foolish. He threw down his cloak and sat down heavily on one of the holstered chairs near the fire. He would be blamed for it, at least partially. He had administered the Draught of Peace to her, at Madame Pomfrey's request of course, but he was still the head of house and should've noticed if the girl was having 'emotional difficulties'. As if he had time for that. He

did not want to contemplate the other possibility since it meant close monitoring of all who had access to the potion, an investigation and pressure from her parents. He would talk to her about the circumstances in the morning. Dumbledore seemed it was a good test of his ability to 'connect with others to reach a goal'. Basically he had to be nice to the kid until she cried on his shoulder and told him all the horrible things in her life and how Billy-Joe pulled her pigtails in first grade which had left her scarred for life. He could imagine the type now, probably rich, spoilt, and ego-centric.

He used to like challenges. He didn't anymore, he found out that challenges where nasty problems with glitter sprinkled over them. The last thing he needed is some weepy girl's problems wasting his time. He had enough of his own.

Madam Pomfrey had informed him while bustling around and fiddling with cures and potions that Ayden had come out of her coma, but she was asleep, so he had to wait for a while. He resisted the urge to ask Pomfrey if she had been a bee in a past life. Her bed was sectioned off with a white screen through which you could only see shadows. He entered the room and for the first time in the six years he had taught her took in her appearance. Her face was moon-shaped and her cheeks and nose looked too big for the rest of her. Her lips were bloodied from chewing on them and her skin tan. Her hair was a light brown and slightly curly. There were dark shadows under her eyes. He tried to remember all he knew about this girl, anything that would speed up the process of wheedling information out of her.

He was a good student, but not as eager as the know-it-all Granger. Although he would not admit it if it killed him, she was an extremely good potions student. Dumbledore said she was the daughter of an Apothecary, maybe her prowess was influenced by the environment she grew up in.

His mental listing was interrupted by the sound of Ayden sitting up and immediately drinking the cup of water which stood on the night stand of all the patients. She looked up at him with big, dark eyes and as she began to take in that she was lying in the hospital bed she asked:

"Snape? I mean Professor Snape? Why are you here? What happened to me?" Her voice was faint and scratchy, a side effect.

"I am here because you foolishly drank ten times the recommended dosage of the Draught of Peace. I personally believe there are more practical ways to end your own life, but yours would've been effective if your roommate hadn't called me."

"Draught of Peace?" she said her eyes moving erratically over my face.

"Dumbledore takes suicide attempts very seriously and requests that if you should feel your life is no longer worth living he would kindly request that you do it while under the care of your parents or guardians, not under his."

He realized that he was being harsh, but he thought suicide to be a way out for the weak. The weak and pathetic, just like his mother.

"Has it ever crossed your mind that someone forced me to drink a large quantity of that potion, or that maybe someone slipped it into my drink?" she said, her voice defensive.

"It did, although the latter option is extremely unlikely unless you have a tendency to drink two liters of pumpkin juice per meal and we no-one beside Madame Pomfrey and I knew that you had requested the potion." Snape replied, hoping she would just own up to the attempt so that he could recommend counseling and stop wasting his life on a depressed teenager.

"You are very good at faking, you know, if I didn't know what I know, I'd almost believe that you are genuinely contemplating this." Her voice was clinical, detached from emotion. "But with your JOB and everything, I guess you have to be."

NOW he was confused, what on earth made her suspect that he was behind her poisoning, or that he knew who had poisoned her.

"Don't flatter yourself, I know nothing about this."

"That's why the only person who has access to such quantities of the Draught is you, and I know for a fact that it is extremely difficult to get past the security surrounding your office, not to mention the tiny detail that it was your PET," she spat the word out like it was a filthy maggot, "was the one who forced this down my throat."

"You are clearly delusional; it must be an unknown side-effect of such a dose of the potion." He said his voice still calm. What were the delusional ramblings of a teenager against his word? Dumbledore trusted him explicitly.

"You don't even want to know who it was then? Oh, I forgot, you already know!" her manic laugh did nothing to validate her previous statements in his eyes. "Draco Bloody Malfoy! It was him,"she went on, "he came to my dorm room that night, only god knows how, and forced it down my throat.

He tried to Obliviate me after I think, but the pathetic weakling didn't succeed. True, it's a bit fuzzy...I'm guessing you won't even be bothering to follow up what I've just said?"

"That would be correct, I will see Madame Pomfrey so she can reverse the effects and THEN we will talk." He stalked away from the bed, towards Madame Pomfrey.

"Madame Pomfrey?" he queried, trying to catch her attention.

"Yes?" she said distractedly, sorting out bandages with one hand while making sure that the stoppers where securely fastened on potion bottles with the other.

"Would you please stop BUSTLING for one minute?" he said, clearly irritated.

Madame Pomfrey look up at him incensed.

"Who do you think you are?"

"Severus Snape, Potions Master at Hogwarts Magical School." he said in a monotone voice. "Miss Eadulf, the patient I was visiting, she is delusional and her jabber is rivaling Muggle conspiracy theorists'. I was wondering if that is an uncommon effect of over-dosing."

Pomfrey's expression immediately turned professional.

"No, not generally. Have you considered that she is telling the truth, but her...eloquence...has been affected by shock?"

"Please start her on a neural replenishing potion straight away and once she is cured inform her that she is to come to my office immediately."

As he was walking out of the hospital wing he was quite aware of the nurse's eyes boring into his back. She had a grudge against those who ended up under hospital care by their own will.

A/– I am aware that Blaise Zabini is in Harry's Year. This fan fiction is an AU fic if you have read HBP. It is set in

5th year, but it is going to use the elements of Snape's life revealed in the 6th book as some type of basis for his character. It also uses the Draco Malfoy subplot as a springboard. Please Review so that I can see how I'm doing.


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